Posted by On July 5th I spent my opening night of the 2013 Ottawa Bluesfest standing in the sprinkling rain listening to blues singer (and Howlin’ Wolf’s sax player) Eddie Shaw (1937-2018) lead his three-to-five piece band through an underwhelming but otherwise fine set on the Black Sheep Stage. I say “three-to-five piece band” as a cheeky reference to Eddie’s guitarist, who played an awkward-looking three-necked monstrosity of an electric guitar for the entire set. He was having a hard time keeping many of his twenty-five strings in tune (twelve, seven and six, top-to-bottom), likely due to the weather, which wreaked mini-havoc on both his instrument and my ability to enjoy Eddie Shaw.
It is inexplicable to me why I wasn’t at the festival the day before for an opening night that featured Grand Funk Railroad and the Black Keys, but I wasn’t. Also hardly-xplicable is why I cut out after Eddie Shaw’s 6:15-7:30 set. I guess the clouds were threatening to dump a heavy rain and my concern over riding home in a downpour outweighed my rather feeble desire to wait around for Zac Brown’s 9pm slot on the main stage. Regardless, Eddie Shaw was all I saw on that Friday night and I didn’t think it was much to write home about, but that’s okay. When I think of Bluesfest I don’t generally think back to Eddie Shaw and his triple-necked sideman playing on the Black Sheep Stage. I’m more inclined to think of acts like Los Lobos or BB King or Björk or The Specials or Rush or The Tragically Hip, all of whom I saw at that year’s Bluesfest.
Heck, I saw The Hip at Bluesfest five times! The first time I saw them at Bluesfest was back in 2004, along with other headliners like Bryan Adams, Lyle Lovett, Keb’ Mo, Xavier Rudd, George Thorogood, and Jaga Jazzist (who absolutely melted my mind). The following Bluesfest was the year when I met m’lady during ZZ Top’s set. We saw a bunch of acts together that year, bands like the New York Dolls, Kid Rock, and John Prine.
That was back in the Bluesfest’s heyday of popularity and growth, an era that brought to my eyes and ears astounding feats of musical bliss from Daniel Lanois, Umphrey’s McGee, Percy Sledge, Iron Maiden, Bob Dylan, War, Bonnie Raitt, Solomon Burke, Michael Franti (countless times, it seems), Rickie Lee Jones, Dickey Betts, Etta James, Luke Doucet, Wilco, Van Morrison, Béla Fleck, Toumani Diabaté, The White Stripes, The Black Keys, Feist, Dave Bidini, Adrian Belew, Lucinda Williams, Joe Cocker, Stone Temple Pilots, Steely Dan, Huey Lewis and the News, Jeff Beck, Edie Brickell, Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, King Sunny Adé, Furthur, The B-52’s, Joan Jett, Brian Setzer, Matisyahu, James Taylor, Jonny Lang, Brian Wilson, Buddy Guy, Arcade Fire, Primus, Widespread Panic, Rush (again…well, pre-again), Santana, Steve Winwood, Ornette Coleman, Peter Frampton, KISS, CAKE, Johnny Winter, Roger Hodgson, The Flaming Lips (twice), Ben Harper (also twice), Snoop Dogg and Steve Miller (twice and twice), Metric (yep: twice. I’ll stop now), the Village People, Ray Davies, Robert Randolph, Donna Summer, Canned Heat, Styx, Les Claypool, Live, Drive-By Truckers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tedeschi Trucks Band, The Hold Steady, Weezer, Jimmy Cliff, John Fogerty, My Morning Jacket, Billy Talent, The Tea Party, Danny Michel, Silver Creek, Jane’s Addiction, and some of Cheap Trick.
Which I suppose would be a segue into the “lean years” of the Ottawa Bluesfest, but were they? In the seven years that I’ve attended the festival since the stage collapsed during Cheap Trick’s set I saw a pretty impressive pile of talent down at LeBreton Flats. Like whom, you ask?
Well, I saw all those bands I mentioned up there at the end of paragraph two, plus the Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band, Gary Clark Jr., Anderson .Paak, The Trews, Darius Rucker, Journey, Lady Gaga, St. Vincent, Violent Femmes, Procol Harum, Air Supply (who were shockingly good), Hawksley Workman, Kanye West, Beck, Sturgill Simpson, Greta Van Fleet, Billy Idol, Blondie, John Mayall, Joe Jackson, The Monkees, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Thornetta Davis, Dr, Hook, Bob Saget (yes, Bob Saget), Deltron 3030, Richard Thompson, Deep Purple, Goddo, Duran Duran, Weird Al, Barenaked Ladies, Cypress Hill, and Tom freakin’ Petty.
Lean? Yeah, right. Just like when people say, “Why do they even call it a blues festival anyways. Where’s the blues?”
I hate those people.
Listen, back in the early days it was unquestionably a blues festival. Proof? Dig these acts that I saw during my first five Bluesfests, starting way back in ’97: Ray Charles, Delbert McClinton, Blues Traveller, Little Feat (just once more: twice), Robert Randolph, Jimmie Vaughan, Dr. John, John Hammond, James Brown, The Allman Brothers Band, Ike Turner, and Wilson Pickett, to name just a few.
But the festival needed more money if it wanted to grow, and if you think that the blues is a cash cow then I’d guess you don’t know what a I-IV-V is. And so it was that during this time period the festival branched out to include the kind of bands that could bring in enough people to allow them to keep paying for the blues acts they were booking. I could point to groups like Sum 41, MC Hammer, Sheryl Crow, Gord Downie, or Kool & the Gang, all of whom offered fun and variety to an already great festival.
And that all leads right back to where I started, with me standing in the rain at the Black Sheep Stage watching old-time I-IV-V’s played on too many necks. And while the set I saw that night remains relatively unremarkable I think you’d have to agree with me when I say that overall the Ottawa Bluesfest has been pretty good to me.
By the way, the above list is hardly comprehensive. It would take me days…
Todd Man Out 